Construction and validation of a communication based emotional support scale

A review of the emotional support and social support literature indicates a paucity of instruments which directly measure the phenomena of interest. While many have utilized assessments of “strong” or “weak” links between relational partners, they have not examined the communication modalities specifically. They have also tended to view emotional support as a unilateral product of a source or receiver rather than a product of communicative interactions. In order to examine support more carefully, a unidimensional instrument was developed to measure the communication of emotional support in relationships. As tests of convergent validity, it was suggested that perceptions of emotional support will be positively correlated to perceptions of relational solidarity and relational quality. The final instrument consisted of 13 communication based items with high reliability and evidence of internal, face, and convergent validity.     

Relational Maintenance and the Influence of Commitment in Online and Offline Relationships

The study of relational-maintenance behaviors has sometimes included the impact of medium as a peripheral variable, but rarely has the impact of medium been tested directly. Participants (N = 1336) delineated themselves into four separate groups depending on the initial and continued use of mediated communication. They reported their use of relational-maintenance behaviors, as well as feelings of commitment towards the relationship. The medium had an impact on the use of relational-maintenance behaviors, primarily between people who had only met their partners in a mediated environment and those who had met them face-to-face. However, commitment level appears to strongly moderate the relationship between group and use of maintenance behaviors.     

Attachment and Relational Satisfaction: The Mediating Effect of Emotional Communication

This study investigated associations among one partner's relational satisfaction and the other partner's style of attachment and emotional communication. Findings from a questionnaire study involving 581 couples showed that participants reported more relational satisfaction when their partners scored high in security and low in dismissiveness and preoccupation. These associations between one's relational satisfaction and the partner's attachment style were partially mediated by how the partner reported communicating emotions. Specifically, participants were less satisfied in relationships with preoccupied partners who reported expressing anger using destructive communication. Participants were less satisfied with dismissive partners who reported using detached emotional communication. Finally, participants were more satisfied with secure partners who reported using prosocial emotional communication. These findings suggest that the often-cited relationship between attachment and relational satisfaction is partially explained by emotional communication.     

Money as Relational Struggle: Communicatively Negotiating Cultural Discourses in Romantic Relationships

Using the lens of Relational Dialectics Theory, this study sought to uncover how competing U.S. cultural financial discourses are negotiated in people’s everyday conversations with their romantic partner. The investigation uncovered that in multiple and varied ways, participants understood money to be a major source of tension in their romantic relationships. One overarching discursive struggle animated participants’ financial talk with their partners: “money is everything” versus “money isn’t everything.” Within this struggle, participants communicatively negotiated the cultural value of money in an attempt to marginalize its power and potential negative influences on relational and economic well-being. Although money is critical in helping people meet their basic needs, this study suggests that deemphasizing the importance of money as all-consuming and omnipotent has the potential to alter couples’ financial and relational well-being.     

Strategic topic avoidance: an investigation of topic avoidance frequency,strategies used,and relational correlates

This research stresses the need to examine the relationship between topic avoidance and relational correlates (e.g., satisfaction and emotional closeness) from a message production theoretical perspective. Our approach—strategic topic avoidance—offers additional explanatory capabilities as the strategies with which interactants in close relationships avoid topics may be associated with perceptions of the relationship (after accounting for topic avoidance frequency). Moreover, relational correlates may also vary by the combination of overall topic avoidance frequency and certain topic avoidance strategies. The current research, therefore, assessed individuals' topic avoidance frequency levels and the frequency of using topic avoidance strategies in relation to satisfaction and closeness across three different relational types (i.e., significant others, mother–young‐adult, and father–young‐adult relationships). Results suggested that avoiding certain topics, such as current relational concerns, predicted levels of satisfaction and closeness across relationship types; however, cross‐relational differences also emerged. Strategies employed to avoid topics accounted for additional variance in satisfaction and closeness for relationships with significant others and mothers but not fathers. Analyses also demonstrated that overall topic avoidance frequency interacted with topic avoidance strategy use.     

Couples' Online Cognitions during Conflict: Links between What Partners Think and their Relational Satisfaction

The current study was conducted to investigate the thoughts romantic partners had as they discussed a topic of conflict in their relationship. A modified version of protocol analysis was employed to access couples' cognitions. Specifically, partners voiced their thoughts aloud as they engaged in a computer-mediated interaction. The findings yielded associations between individuals' cognitions and their relational satisfaction as well as differences between the cognitions of men and women. Individuals' vocalized thoughts also were associated with their partner's satisfaction. The results provide an interesting portrayal of various associations between the way partners feel about their relationship and the unspoken thoughts they have during the course of interaction. Possible theoretical and methodological implications for the literature on couples' cognitions and relational satisfaction are discussed.     

Risk,threat, and information seeking about genital herpes: The effects of mood and message framing

This paper examines the effect that mood and message frame has on perceived threat, efficacy, attitude, intention and, ultimately, behavior regarding genital herpes information seeking. A 2 (message frame: negative/positive) X 2 (mood: happy/sad) independent groups experiment examining the interaction between mood and message framing was conducted. A two‐way interaction between mood and message framing on the dependent variable(s) was hypothesized such that persons in a sad mood will be more persuaded (as evidenced by heightened threat, efficacy, attitude, intention and behavior) by a negatively framed message given its mood congruent qualities. And, persons in a happy mood were posited to be more persuaded by a positively framed message given its mood congruent qualities. A main effect for mood was also proposed, given that sad persons are expected to pay closer attention to the message(s) overall. These data were partially consistent with the hypotheses. In the main, frame and mood elicited separate effects. Sadness is positively correlated with severity and susceptibility of genital herpes. Frame increases response efficacy. A path model articulating the relationships among all variables is proposed.     

Rituals in Committed Romantic Relationships: The Creation and Validation of an Instrument

Rituals are widely studied in interpersonal communication research, but no instrument for assessing the preceived use of rituals among couples in committed romantic relationships exists. The purpose of this investigation was to create and validate such a measure (Rituals in Committed Romantic Relationships; RCRR). Five-hundred-sixty individuals in committed romantic relationships responded to a 50-item questionnaire that measured 5 sets of rituals pertaining to daily routines and tasks, idiosyncratic behavior, everyday talk, intimacy, and couple-time. In addition, they completed measures of perceived relational quality and perceived relational intimacy. Multiple analyses supported a 5-factor model consisting of 30 of the original 50 items. Perceived use of rituals was predictive of alterations in both perceived relational quality and perceived relational intimacy.     

Relational Maintenance in On-again/Off-again Relationships: An Assessment of How Relational Maintenance,Uncertainty, and Commitment Vary by Relationship Type and Status

Because on-again/off-again (on-off) relationships typically maintain their relationships in some form even after relational dissolution, a communication process that may be particularly relevant to understanding these relationships is relational maintenance. Using cross-sectional data, the current study assessed relational maintenance, uncertainty, and commitment to further understand how on-off relationships differ from relationships that do not have a history of renewals (i.e., noncyclical relationships). The sample of 487 participants completed a survey on either their current dating relationship or a postdissolution relationship. As predicted, on-off partners used less maintenance behaviors than noncyclical partners in current relationships, but, contrary to predictions, on-off partners did not use more maintenance behaviors in their postdissolution relationships than partners without a history of renewing. Path models assessing the interrelationships among maintenance, relationship uncertainty, and commitment also suggest relational maintenance operates somewhat differently in on-off and noncyclical relationships. Implications for on-off as well as dating relationships in general are discussed.     

“We Do It, but They Don't”: Multiple Categorizations and Work Team Communication

The present study adopted an intergroup approach to information sharing and ratings of work team communication in a public hospital (N = 142) undergoing large-scale restructuring. Consistent with predictions, ratings of communication followed a double ingroup serving bias: while team members reported sending about the same levels of information to double ingroup members (same work team/same occupational group) as they did to partial ingroup members (same work team/different occupational group), they reported receiving less information from partial ingroup members than from double ingroup members and rated the communication that they received from partial ingroup members as less effective. We discuss the implication of these results for the management of information sharing and organizational communication.     

Communication,Relationships, and Religious Difference in the Northern Ireland Workplace: A Study of Private and Public Sector Organizations

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged the effects of group-based negativity on the flow and distribution of functional information within the organization. Little evidence of intergroup conflict was found although employees expressed a desire for greater quantity and quality of outgroup contact. Significant differences between the private and public bodies emerged in this respect. Contrasts were consistent with general organizational differences typifying the sectors. Findings are discussed in relation to diversity management and the characteristics of organizational sectors.     

Communication, Relationships, and Religious Difference in the Northern Ireland Workplace: A Study of Private and Public Sector Organizations

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged the effects of group-based negativity on the flow and distribution of functional information within the organization. Little evidence of intergroup conflict was found although employees expressed a desire for greater quantity and quality of outgroup contact. Significant differences between the private and public bodies emerged in this respect. Contrasts were consistent with general organizational differences typifying the sectors. Findings are discussed in relation to diversity management and the characteristics of organizational sectors.     

Religious Pluralistic Language in a Computer-Mediated Context: Effects of Intergroup Salience and Religious Orientation

This study investigated the degree to which religious pluralistic language varies as a function of the intergroup salience of a context and religious orientation. Based on a 2 (Religious Salience of Context) × 3 (Religious Salience of Topic) experimental design, participants (N = 239) were instructed to compose an e-mail to an interactional partner based on the randomly assigned condition. Messages were coded for religious pluralistic language, and participants completed measures of religious orientation and evaluations of the conversational partner. Modest effects were found for both intergroup salience of the context and topic as well as religious orientation.     

Small group relational satisfaction scale: Development,reliability and validity

A 12‐item Relational Satisfaction Scale (RSS) was developed and examined for reliability and validity. Reliability (Cronbach's alpha) for the RSS was high at .89 (M = 43.91, SD = 6.89). In Study I, full time employees (N = 228) reported attitudes about group work, assertiveness, responsiveness, perceptions of feedback and relational satisfaction in work groups. All four variables were positively correlated to relational satisfaction. In Study 2, the RSS along with measures of loneliness, cohesion and consensus were administered to 210 students involved in on‐going decision‐making projects. Positive relationships were found for relational satisfaction and cohesion and consensus, with a negative relationship for loneliness. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The impact of an older adult parent on communicative satisfaction and dyadic adjustment in the long-term marital relationship: adult-children and spouses' retrospective accounts

This research examined adult-children and their spouses' (N v = v 15 dyads) self-reports of communicative behaviors in the long-term marital relationship when caring for an older adult parent in their home and long-term married couples (N v = v 34 dyads) not caring for a parent. A quasi-experimental retrospective design was implemented to determine the effect of an older adult parent on the relational change of the adult marital dyad. Results of a mixed model ANOVA revealed a significant 2-way interaction effect in a negative direction regarding communicative satisfaction for long-term married couples after a parent has moved into the adult-child home with no other substantial or significant findings. An analysis of the means indicated that the interaction effect is a function of the fact that having a parent present slightly decreases marital satisfaction, whereas when the parent is not present satisfaction increases. Implications of the results for the study of caring for an older adult parent in the adult-child and spouse long-term marital relationship are discussed, and future applications of the life span developmental perspective are suggested     

The Rate and Delay in Overload: An Investigation of Communication Overload and Channel Synchronicity on Identification and Job Satisfaction

This study investigates the relationship between communication overload and uses of diverse communication channels in terms of their level of synchronicity. Emphasis on the synchronicity of any given channel reveals how temporal elements (i.e., rate and processing time) play an important role in perceptions of communication load. Additionally, this study examines the association between communication overload, organizational identification and job satisfaction. Findings reveal: (a) both high and low synchronous channels are associated with increased reports of communication overload; (b) a mediating effect of organizational identification on the relationship between communication overload and job satisfaction; and (c) a moderating effect of communication overload on the relationship between low synchronous channels and organizational identification.     

On Communicating Pride,Crying in Movies,and Recruiting Innocent Bystanders: The Effect of Sex on Communication Schemas Activated with Gay and Heterosexual Targets

Invoking social identity theory as an interpretive frame, a previous content analysis of heterosexuals' representations of imagined conversations with gay men revealed a number of communication schemas for talk with the latter (e.g., homonegativity and offense avoidance). This study explores the role of participant sex in determining the prevalence of such schemas, comparatively incorporating representations of conversations with a heterosexual target. Two hundred American undergraduates imagined a conversation with a gay or heterosexual male target. Male participants' imagined conversations with a gay target were rated more negative, indicated less evidence of relational development, and included more gay stereotyping than did females' imagined dialogues.     

Comparing Physically Abused,Neglected, and Nonmaltreated Children During Interactions with their Parents: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

A meta-analysis of 30 observational studies compares abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated children's behavior during interactions with their parents. Drawing on the relational communication literature, children's behaviors from various coding schemes were grouped into those communicating positivity (e.g., affection, approval), aversiveness (e.g., anger, resistance), and involvement (e.g., attention, interest). Results reveal that abused and neglected children are distinguished from nonmaltreated children on all three behavioral clusters, with overall mean weighted effect sizes ranging from d=.29 to .55. Several moderators qualify the magnitude though not the direction of these differences, including maltreatment type, child/parent age, and observation length and setting. These findings have implications for understanding the etiology and outcomes of child maltreatment as well as for intervention and prevention efforts.     

Types of touch in cross-sex relationships between coworkers: perceptions of relational and emotional messages,inappropriateness, and sexual harassment

This study examined observers' perceptions of nine different types of touch (including a "no touch" control condition) used in cross-sex relationships between coworkers. Results showed that face touch sends particularly strong relational and emotional messages. A soft touch in the cheek area of the face was seen as signaling more affection, attraction, flirtation, and love than the other types of touch. Face touch was also rated as the most inappropriate and sexually harassing of the nine types of touch examined. Arm around the waist was also rated as showing relatively high levels of attraction and flirtation, as well as inappropriateness and harassment. No touch and handshaking conveyed the most formality. Observers rated women as more affectionate, trusting, happy, and composed than men across the touch conditions. Men, however, were judged to be more attracted to their cross-sex partners than were women. These and other findings are discussed to shed light on the multiple interpretations of touch within the context of relationships between cross-sex coworkers.     

Types of touch in cross-sex relationships between coworkers: perceptions of relational and emotional messages, inappropriateness, and sexual harassment

This study examined observers' perceptions of nine different types of touch (including a "no touch" control condition) used in cross-sex relationships between coworkers. Results showed that face touch sends particularly strong relational and emotional messages. A soft touch in the cheek area of the face was seen as signaling more affection, attraction, flirtation, and love than the other types of touch. Face touch was also rated as the most inappropriate and sexually harassing of the nine types of touch examined. Arm around the waist was also rated as showing relatively high levels of attraction and flirtation, as well as inappropriateness and harassment. No touch and handshaking conveyed the most formality. Observers rated women as more affectionate, trusting, happy, and composed than men across the touch conditions. Men, however, were judged to be more attracted to their cross-sex partners than were women. These and other findings are discussed to shed light on the multiple interpretations of touch within the context of relationships between cross-sex coworkers.